With the recession over, the job market is surging. Employees are no longer sitting in dead-end jobs comfortable to be taking a salary home at the end of the month.

Comfortable is gone, and that jobs spike is around an 80% growth across the UK jobs market, and employees are becoming choosey about who to work with and rightly so.

The most successful businesses are connected. They have a strong brand across the digital media and in offline communities too.

Staff incentives are used to attract candidates and lower recruitment fees, but does your business have the right balance for an employer brand proposition?

That’s a question you may want to give some thought to.

While it is possible to have a strong brand name in the eyes of your customers, it’s also possible to have a weak brand in the eyes of potential recruits.

If you can’t stand up to a strong brand, employees are likely to go with one of your competitors. That will likely be a company with a unique approach to recruitment.

The 5 components that attract the best candidates for your business

1. True to the brand

A unified voice needs to be heard amidst your employees. While you might feel that you’ve a great incentive program implemented to help you retain staff, it’s worthless if your employees think their goals are unattainable.

If rewards are offered, your current employees are the place to start. Ask if they value the incentives, or any other programs you offer in your business and that will let you know if your plans ring true with your current staff.

If they don’t, there are no referral programs in the world going to work until a real unified recruitment package is established and verified with your staff.

2. Relevant to both staff and business goals

If you’re running a call centre paying telesales reps above industry salaries, then it’s unlikely they’ll be complaining. However, if you pay minimum wage with above average performance bonuses, then it’s relevant to your business interests and your employees.

Salaries are only part of the package though as the best talent is recruited based on the potential for career progression.

Therefore, for your business to grow, it’s highly advantageous to allow your team to grow with your business.

3. Credible to recruits

Credibility starts from your current team, regardless if it’s small. It only takes one member of your staff to have your brand name linked with their social media profiles and when they praise your brand, they do your marketing for you.

The opposite can happen though as if you’re advertising as the best in the business and your current team members are destroying your brand credibility, then you will lose out big time.

When it comes to attracting real talent to your business, you need a strong brand, and that’s built through solid foundations of brand name marketing, creating positivity associated with your business.

4. Distinctive amidst competitors

There are a couple of things employees look for in new jobs. One of those is security, and that’s associated with a strong brand name. The other is the potential for career progression, and you may be surprised to find that to get that potential, provided it is backed by the credibility factor, that a lower salary package can still be a powerful attractor because the potential is there.

5. Ambition to strive for more

If you really want top talented staff in your business, you need to demonstrate the same level of ambition, if not more.

Why ask candidates to be ambitious if the business plan doesn’t involve growing into more competitive markets, and consistently striving to become the best in your field.

Ambition is a two way street, and the stronger brand name you have, the more likely it is you’ll attract the staff you need to help you reach your business goals.

Every business is only as strong as the people behind the scenes.

Bring your brand unity together

Think of the biggest brands you can and think of them from two sides:

Inside the brand are the people of the business

Outside of the brand is how the business is perceived

When you promote your brand name, promote from the inside to resonate with the outside and bring the two together in unison.

With time, and persistence, using all the mediums the digital era has to offer, any size of business can create a powerful brand presence both online and offline.

Google+ is a network crammed full of consumers, business owners, bloggers, and influential characters that can do a number on your marketing campaigns.

It only takes a connection with one person of influence to skyrocket your online exposure, and that’s what you can tap into on the Google+ network.

It has a mixture of every type of person from savvy business owners, consumers, and an active blogging community, who can put your content in front of the eyes of targeted prospects, on your behalf.

Connections are a key factor to business growth. You cannot grow online alone. Offline businesses often connect through events, be it a sponsored sporting event, or a local community event to raise awareness.

Online – things work much faster and take nowhere near as long compared to organising an event. If you’re looking to do a webinar type of event, with a small number of people, you can use the Google+ Hangout feature to connect face-to-face, via video conferencing, and really get to know the people you’re connected with through your circles.

How you use those features directly affects the type of results you can achieve

For marketing purposes, you can separate influential people on Google+ into a circle of marketing prospects. That could be to organise a local event, perhaps a seminar on the benefits of your particular services…

Or…

It could be an educational hangout to a number of potential customers where you can announce your latest product launch, before it goes live in your stock inventory.

The power of the latter can be a huge boost to raising the stakes at launch through a beta testing period, creating powerful user reviews on your Google+ business page. Just because you took the time to educate a handful of consumers on the purpose and the how to, on using the product, ensuring a fuss free use, geared towards attracting positive reviews.

Those reviews are rated and are right within the Google search results pages (SERPs). That’s just one example of how you can boost your business with the power of Google+.

The uses for the network go far beyond just connecting with people. You can do that on any social network. It’s the diverse magnitude of ways you have at your disposal to connect with your circles that make Google+ the absolute must for any serious business owner. Regarding online exposure, the more you work it, the better your growth. It’s all about influence and exposure here.

Connect with as many people as possible, continually contributing as much as possible

The more you have your content posted, the more your Google+ Business Page is going to show up on your circles notifications.

The more exposure you gain, the more powerful a branding effect starts to occur. People remember you, and they begin to trust you as a credible source. When you use a variety of ways to share your content, i.e. video, text, image, and hangouts, the more unexpected your material becomes.

When you create that “I wonder” scenario, people begin to pay more attention to your notifications, really start to engage with you, follow the directions you have to either follow a link, make a purchase, or comment on a purchase already made.

Whatever goals you have, you can only achieve it through connections. If you want a spike in your website traffic, get your content in front of active bloggers. Give them a quality page to share with their readership, and gain a powerful endorsement right off the bat.

With 2014 fast approaching we are starting to be asked about how one should be promoting their website moving forward into the coming year.

When it comes to your online business reputation and to ensure a continued high visibility in organic search, you have marginal room for error in your SEO campaign.

Competition can be rife and to be best you have to beat the rest. To do that is going to take effort and you are unlikely to be able to do it alone.

That’s why our team of experts are on hand to help you to promote your brand name, which will maximise your visibility online.

We know what it takes to run an SEO campaign smoothly, generating results via a number of methods. Those methods require a hands on approach both on your website itself, and on the offsite optimisation too.

Since the rollout of the Google Panda Update, followed by the Penguin update, there has been a ripple effect across the SEO landscape.

With the Panda update hitting subpar content on the website itself, and the Penguin update brutally assaulting backlink patterns, they have changed the entire way SEO and link building needs to be conducted.

The modern SEO is to promote a brand name via a multitude of marketing methods. But only after the website in question has been carefully analysed, or custom created, to ensure optimal performance.

Let’s go into the factors that equate to an excellent website ready for ranking:

1) Responsive Web Design

The days where your customers only find you on a laptop or desktop PC are long gone. Smartphones and tablets are the new way people are searching the web, and the only way to ensure the best user experience, is to have a responsive web design in place.

This allows your website to adapt to the device a user is using to access your content. If you are on a static domain with fixed pixels, users have to scroll left to right, and up and down. Not good and it will drastically affect the amount of people that drop off from your site, due to poor usability.

Have your website responsive to all platforms, and you’ll increase usability, increasing your time on site.

2) Fast page load times

This one is crucial and your analytics metrics will tell you your website load time and for good reason too.

No search engine wants the top recommended site returned to their user, resulting in a fifteen-second page load time, to find out if it matches their search query.

Your site needs to load as fast as possible, saving your visitors the headache of frustration when your site hangs on load.

Using a multitude of scripts will slow down your load time. The less scripts that are running the better, and will lead to a faster page load time.

3) High quality content

You can have the best responsive web design, and fast page load time on your site, but it’s going to make no difference if you don’t have high quality content for your readers to absorb.

That content needs to be presented in an easy to understand manner, with plenty of whitespace that enables your visitors to scan quickly through your page. The faster they can absorb your quality content, the more satisfied an experience they’ll have.

Your content is what yields the best returns from all of your site visitors. Without it, you’re dead in the water, both in visitor satisfaction, and in terms of your SEO campaign.

4) Social media signals

This is by far the fastest way to get your content spread across the net. When you think of the set up of social media, the connections are key to getting your content found, shared, and increasing visibility online.

It’s the friends, friends of friends, and recommendations that signal your site is of quality and worth sharing.

When you have referral traffic from social media sites, it’s a good indicator that the site you have is one that’s trusted as it is being recommended.

Trust is an important factor and is weighed by search engines, to ensure the results they return to their searchers are a trusted source, as they are being recommended by others.

5) Optimisation

The site itself needs to be optimised, but the mistake most will make is optimising for search engine purposes only.

That is not the approach you should take to your onsite optimisation. It should be optimised for the best user experience.

A good example of that is by having an FAQ page on your site. At the mention of anything that a new visitor may not understand, instead of having the same content inserted repeatedly, you can simply link to that section of your FAQ page (click here to learn more) sort of thing.

By doing this, users can establish trust that you know what you are talking about, as they don’t have to disappear back to a search engine to run another query just to understand your content.

Inter linking is an integral part of your optimisation, but they need to be considered carefully, always ensuring that they are inserted for user benefit and not solely for search engines.

The words you use on your pages, the linking structure, and the navigation are three major aspects of a well-optimised website.

6) Unnatural linking is no go!

In the past, a major impact on search rankings weighed heavily on the backlinks a site had coming in. The number of referring sites acted a trust metric, establishing trust in the domain, pushing it higher in rankings.

Penguin crushed that game as it was widely open to manipulation.

Backlinks, while still weighed in search, you need to be encouraging the natural links, and not manually building them.

The key to building natural links is to generate awareness of your brand name. When you do that, discussions begin online, and people link naturally to you.

Google is one of the search engines that help website owners to control their incoming links. Referring domains are shown through webmasters tools, and analytics reporting.

By monitoring these, you can see the linking domains and the inner page that directly links to your website. By monitoring this section of your analytics, you can identify where low quality and irrelevant links are pointing to your domain.

If this spikes, then Google does have a disavow tool that you can use to notify them to disregard certain incoming links.

That should be a last resort though.

Site owners should handle any unnatural, or spam looking links themselves at the outset. They can do so by contacting the site owners themselves, and request a manual link removal. If you have no success there, then use the disavow tool to notify Google that you do not want that site/link/page associated with your domain.

It is considered a more advanced measure, and used the wrong way could have negative impacts on your search rankings, so use this tool with caution. The manual approach should always be attempted first, before instructing search engines to disavow certain links.

7) Own your prime space

The prime space on a website refers to the section above the fold of your website. The part that is immediately visible when someone lands on any of your pages. This is your prime space and the area your most important message should be.

If you are a plumber, then describe your services here, give your readers your contact details, and place any key information that you need to engage with your readers.

What you should not do is give it up for advertising. If you are linking out to another site, then web spiders could view it as a doorway page, with the sole purpose being to direct traffic to another website.

That will affect your ranking position, so the key is to own the most prominent area of your website, to encourage user engagement on your own domain.

Each of the above are areas measured by search engine algorithms, and need incorporated onto your website and your offsite optimisation too.

Speaking of off page optimisation, this is how most SEO firms look at it. The way we look at here, is to promote your brand name, with the emphasis on the marketing aspect of your business, marketing in a way that encourages conversation, and naturally boosts your backlinks by making your target customers aware of your online presence.

When you’re about to start using Twitter, or even if you’re already on the platform and not seeing the results you were initially expecting, then the following will put you on the right path.

There’s a right and a wrong way to use Twitter for business, and the right way needs a plan to get you noticed.

You’re going into a crowd of millions here. A crowd that doesn’t give T in the Park, even combined with a Glastonbury festival a look in. The noise is unnerving and to get yourself standing out amidst a crowd of this magnitude, you need a plan of action.

The steps below will steer you in the right direction for using Twitter for your business:

Getting your Twitter Handle Right

When the .com boom started a market formed of people snatching up domain names, holding them, and then selling them to business owners for more than they purchased them for. This still happens because the .com is like the web. Without a .com or a .co.uk you’re going to struggle with branding.

The only reason being, that people associate a website with a .com or a .co.uk extension.

That same issue is now happening with Twitter. Your Twitter handle is your user name. Since branding requires consistency, you may be better with a domain extension for your personal blog or corporate website, which has the same Twitter handle available for brand consistency.

It’ll avoid confusing your target audience and even stop people from following the wrong people when they think they’re on your page.

Set your brand image up

Your brand is the image you need consistency with too. For your best approach use the same image across all your social media profiles. The wording in your tagline should explain exactly what you’re about and your image should remain consistent across all your social media accounts. Again…avoiding confusion

Differentiate what you’re all about – Expert, Resource or Both

When you’re on Twitter, you’ve got a couple of personas you can take, depending on your expertise. You can be the expert resource for people to turn to, perhaps becoming known for Q & A sessions, answering questions that your audience has.

The other option you have is to be a resource to your audience, and not claim to be an expert. As a resource, you’re just staying on top of all the latest news and providing commentary along the way.

Form a consistent marketing plan

With your Twitter accounts set up to brand your business, your website and your Twitter handle, you then need a marketing plan to ensure people remember your details.

You can do that in a number of places by placing your Twitter handle on your:

Engagement is a powerful tool: get the balance right when it comes to content and your customers will come back for more, then spread the word about your offer and act as your unofficial – but influential – brand ambassadors.

Do you know where most businesses go wrong with marketing on social media?

Many businesses fall into the trap of using social media channels to churn out their direct marketing, a mistake which will quickly turn off existing and new customers

People hate to be sold too – that’s not why they’re on social sites. They hang out on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus etc, to socialise with people who have similar interests.

If you’re passionate about baking, and run a local bakery, then chances are you’ll be on Facebook posting pictures of the delicious cakes you’ve baked – this is fine if you’re encouraging genuine interest and comments without a hidden agenda.

Your customers and potential customers want to know what’s new but it’s more impactful to get them to do the talking for you, and share their opinions on your chocolate muffins rather than hear from you how great they are.

Subliminal Marketing through Social Media

On social media sites, a subtle approach, which represents your brand without the hard sell is the best approach..

For a social media campaign to be a success, you need the time and know-how to manage your account effectively. And as your brand presence grows along with your number of followers, the more interactions you’ll be required to manage so it’s essential you have the time to keep up these interactions and ensure your content is balanced.

Create a profile/page/account which is current, interesting and two-way (don’t overdo the hard sell) and your fans and followers will find it a conducive environment for sharing and connecting. And before you know it, the platform will be your living brand.

Remember, not every update needs to business-focused. Interaction with your ‘fans’ is key and it’s important to make time to get to know them, understand their needs so you know what makes them tick.

A mixture of personality and business keeps your business real

To anyone who doesn’t already know about your business, your social media presence is a useful gauge to establish your credibility, so take it as seriously as you would any other marketing channel.

When it comes to complaints, it’s easy for your customers share their often unflattering views on these, very public, forums. It’s really important to keep on top of these potential damaging comments and respond quickly to maintain your customer satisfaction and demonstrate to prospects there’s a real human side to your business which cares, wants tosolve problems and keep its customers happy.

You could call this the subliminal part of the marketing – every action you take on line embodies your brand so your online persona, like employees, must act with integrity in order to establish trust and encourage customers to themselves become ambassadors of your brand through powerful Word of mouth recommendations..

5 key Social Networks:

1) Twitter

2) Facebook

3) Pinterest

4) Google Plus

5) YouTube

The most popular choices for businesses across all sectors is Facebook And Twitter, which have different functions but complement each other well and benefit from simple integration across the platforms.

Pinterest is the social images network. Images can be an equally effective medium for spreading your marketing message, and building your brand. By generating social shares your brand gains , exposure and with it credibility..

Google Plus’ concept of circles for friends, and business associates is another useful tool which adds additional credibility to search results related to your business by, adding a powerful image which will stand out among a page of text.

YouTube can be linked to G+ account thus inviting prospects more interested in video content, rather than written material.

In short, the more channels you use to interact with your customers, the more successful your campaign can be; but it takes time to manage these channels and skill to keep them fresh and engaging, and time is often something small businesses lack. .

That’s where social media marketing services can help your business.

Please feel free to contact us today. We’d be happy to discuss your Social Media Management and Marketing requirements.

The online world is a fast-paced environment where users expect the information they’re seeking to be accessed in seconds, with a few clicks of the mouse. Get them confused with complicated navigation and multiple click-throughs to deeply buried pages and you’ve lost them, for good.

Gone are the days of slow load times and pages laden with lengthy text and flashy images. Simple, clean and current are today’s web buzzwords and these apply as much to a website’s look and feel as to its content.

Ordering your Information

First things first, you need to get your content in order by assessing and creating your ‘information architecture’. This is the process of organising your website’s content into categories and designing an interface to support those categories. You must have a clear idea of what you want your site to do (e.g., do you need an e-commerce platform?) and what structure the site needs to support this. This is technical stuff so although many off-the-shelves websites exist, if you want a truly bespoke offer, you will need to get the experts in.

Navigating a clear path

Think of your website as a path which can go off in different directions but provides clear signposts to help users navigate their journey. A maze-like website which uses a myriad of menus, drop downs and multiple child pages will get both the user and its content completely lost.

Use a less-is-more approach and stick to a short set of clear, universally acceptable headings for your global navigation – such as ‘About Us’, Contact Us’ and ‘Our Products’. It’s useful to provide a ‘crumb trail’ at the top of each page so users no where they are and can see an easy route back home.

Branding is Your Best Friend

Your brand is about more than just your logo. It should translate into all aspects of your website, from its typeface and images to page layout. Tone of voice is your brand personified so ensure your web copy speaks in a voice that compliments your product or service too.

When it comes to the nitty-gritty elements of your brand, go back to basics to ensure what works offline works online too.Your logo may need some tweaking so it conveys itself effectively – ask yourself some simple questions: is it big enough, clear enough, bold enough to make an impact?

How about the tagline/supporting text, too much or not enough? Do the colours need sharpening up? Is the image high-res enough? When you chose a typeface/font, ensure it is applied across the site for absolute consistency. Using multiple fonts creates a confused, chaotic feel which creates a poor user experience, and in turn a poor brand experience.

Think about your images too – ideally they should be original and unique, not taken from a stock image source. And a carefully chosen colour palette, with accent tones to differentiate areas of your site really help create a streamlined, professional look.

Content is King

Content is like a loaf of bread; it gets stale easily. Core content has a longer shelf life, but don’t neglect your web pages once they’re written and assume they can be left unchanged indefinitely. As your products/services evolve, so should your content, which must reflect anything new that’s going on in your business.

The introduction of a blog, which can be linked from your site or be an integral part of it, is a great way to ensure there’s always something fresh and new. And it also helps you create that all-important brand persona, giving your offering a human voice.

New, fresh content is what’s known as ‘sticky’ – it gets existing and new users hooked on what you have to say. And Google likes it too: regularly updated web pages show you’re offering a valued service to users, so your site is seen as an authority and your search rankings are boosted.

Fresh not Flash

It’s fresh, easily digestible content that counts, so forget slow loading videos and images which frustrate and hinder access to your site. Keep blocks of text short, concise and impactful with paragraphs no more than a few sentences long. Images and pull quotes should be used to break up text and support your key messages.

The temptation is to overload webpages with tickers, pop-ups and rich content but a pared down look which is easier on the eye conveys a more professional, pulled-together look. Of course you should embed video content, add social buttons and make use of side bars to add impact but step back and assess the finished page and remember less is definitely more. There’s nothing worse than a page that looks too busy and tries to say too much.

Remember to Optimise

Once your site is up and running don’t forget to put some effort into ensuring all your hard work is actually visible, and easy to find for your target audience. This is where search engine optimisation comes in.

You may want to get expert help but there are plenty of things you can do to ensure your site gets off to the best start. Firstly, do some keyword analysis using a free tool such as Google’s keyword analyser. Think of top search terms related to your offer (ideally your domain name should also include one of these, so make sure you do this kind of research up front). Using navigation and creating content relating to all these will help Google see that you’re an expert in this field, and start to rank you accordingly.

Getting back links to your site helps boost its authority and shows you are a credible, trusted information source. Setting up social media channels to promote your content is a good way to do this. Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn and YouTube are some of the key channels you should be considering.

Let’s face it, where do we turn to to research anything from a product or service to the latest celebrity gossip? Online of course – just one click and information is at your fingertips. Thanks to Google, we’re faced with an endless list of information sources without even having to leave our seat.

Since the World Wide Web’s birth, any savvy business has been quick to create an online presence, even if this meant the most basic of websites. But once live, it was often forgotten about, with content seldom updated and failing to move with the rapidly changing virtual times.

With the evolution of web 2.0 the online world became more interactive, immediate and social, as web users demanded more and became increasingly discerning about the content they digested.

Every business knows the value of its brand; how a weak brand can quickly impact on sales and growth, and a strong one can see a solid customer base and a strong bottom line. The online brand is as important as its offline counterpart – in fact the two are integral – and requires regular, dedicated investment.

If your business needs any more convincing about the return on such an investment, read on for our top ten reasons why every business needs to take it’s online brand seriously.

1. Reputation is all

Information found online can make or break a business. And businesses which choose to ignore the importance of a rapid response to a customer complaint or clarifying incorrect information will quickly feel the impact.

The most effective way of managing and maintaining a positive reputation is to ensure website content and other online channels are up to date, with the latest product/service information and current contact details (there’s nothing worse than incorrect phone/fax numbers and emails which bounce back). If businesses can’t keep track of such basics it is assumed they neglect other key areas of their business and trust is quickly lost.

If you commit to investing time and resources into managing other online channels, such as a blog or Facebook page, ensure there is a person dedicated to content updates and customer engagement. Regular commentary from a company persona and swift responses times help develop relationships and build trust.

2.The rewards of loyalty

Building brand loyalty in a competitive marketplace is essential for business survival, especially for businesses which exist solely online. Customers remain loyal to brands which keep them updated and engaged – this can be something simple like news of a new product, or a special promotion exclusive to existing customers. Ignore your customer base and you will soon find them looking elsewhere for better. Treat them like a trusted friend and they will reward you with their loyalty.

If a customer encounters problems and contacts you directly or leaves a web comment intended for your eyes, ensure your response is rapid and your promise to resolve the matter sincere and swift. Everyone knows that one unhappy customer will be quick to tell everyone about their poor experience, which can have a very negative impact on a business. Give their story a happy ending and you will show potential customers you care and are worthy of their custom. Information is rapidly shared online so ensure anything about your brand is positive.

3.Stand out from the crowd

Businesses need to conduct regular competitor analysis to ensure they are one step ahead. The online world has made such analysis easier as competitor’s tactics are more transparent.

Businesses yet to engage with customers through social media are likely to lose out if they do not have a presence in the online spaces where they spend much of their time. Businesses need to be accessible and visible in the social world rather than continue to expect their customers to come to them.

Make it easy for customers to find out about your product/service and point them to where you’d like them to go by providing deep links to your webpages from within the channels they already frequent. They’re unlikely to visit your website unless you make it easy for them to get there.

4.Organic versus paid-for presence

There are two approaches to ensure a memorable online presence. One is the traditional paid-for approach; spending on Google AdSense to guarantee your top slot in the search rankings. The ‘organic’ tactic relies on more social, interactive content across a number of online platforms which complement each other and provide a joined-up online experience.

Sponsored links, which appear at the top of a search engine’s results page may give a brand online visibility but this approach can be expensive and does not offer the same level of endorsement that a naturally high ranking does. When your website ranks well on its own, it’s likely to be down to the matrix of other sites which are sending links its way.

A Facebook page, twitter channel and up to date blog all contribute to more favourable ranking for your website. Commitment is required to ensure these channels are coordinated and content is current, but it’s often a more affordable and trusted option than bidding on often competitive (and expensive) key words to maintain online visibility.

5.Customer recall

Offline and online alike, if your brand cannot be easily recalled or recollected, your efforts aren’t making a big enough impact. For a brand to succeed, it must be memorable and remain front of mind among your target audience. A brand that already promotes itself via traditional means such as advertising or a physical shop front also needs to complement this with regular, consistent online messaging and activity.

Customers will only remember a brand that has had an impact on them, so make sure yours stands out from the crowd by following simple brand basics online too: does your logo translate online? Are your images sharp, your colours consistent? Are your strapline or brand promises easily digestible in a fast paced environment? Don’t overload with too much information – bite-size chunks of written or visual content works best to ensure recall.

6.Make it memorable

Making your brand memorable means the difference between retaining existing customers and attracting new ones or losing potential new customers to the competition because they have made a bigger impact. This goes back to customer analysis – stay one step ahead of what they are doing and ensure you go above and beyond their offer. But don’t over promise and under-deliver, ensure that what you are promising is do-able.

Think about how you can share your online content through social channels to ensure it is seen by as many people as possible. Make the most of your own feeds and pages but join in relevant conversations too. For example, if you’re sharing a special offer on your own home pages, post to relevant Facebook pages or use an existing, relevant twitter hash tag (#) to make it visible amid your target market.

7.Be engaging

Engaging means starting and maintaining a conversation with your customer. When you share information and listen to the feedback, you will learn more, and be able to adapt your offer with the information you receive.

Your brand will also be seen as progressive, interested and caring – no one likes to be talked out without any opportunity to reply so ensure your online channels are open to receiving feedback, and act on any comments/suggestions you are given. Two-way communication is key.

8.Advocates and ambassadors

There is nothing more powerful than someone who promotes your brand through positive comments and unsolicited praise. People trust their peers and when they are seen to support and champion a particular brand, that brand gains credibility.

Brand advocates and ambassadors should be nurtured and treated with great respect. Monitor online channels to understand what is being said about your brand. Sending a simple acknowledgement of positive feedback makes the person feel they are being listened to and appreciated.

Equally, respond swiftly to any negative comments and give assurance that you will rectify the issue swiftly. This will turn a potentially damaging situation into one which shows your brand as responsive and caring.

9.Visibility

To ensure brand visibility, it is not enough to develop a website, Facebook page or YouTube channel and just leave it to run itself. Brands need to continually evolve and change their content to remain relevant and interesting.

Keep abreast of changes to the online world and ensure you have a presence on platforms which your target audience are using. Although the core channels mentioned above are a fundamental part of your online presence, new channels will emerge and present branding opportunities.

Think about how you could adapt your content to suit channels such as Pinterest and Instagram. But don’t spread yourself too thinly or invest time and resource in a channel which you don’t understand and won’t be able to adequately maintain.

10.The personal touch

People build trust in other people and the interactions they have, not the brand alone. These interactions include people on the shop floor, the person at the end of a customer hotline, or the voice which is conveyed in web copy, a blog post, tweet or Facebook post.

YouTube presents an additional opportunity to interact with your target audience ‘face to face’ via the medium of video. All these customer touch points are opportunities to convey your brand’s personality so take time to get your tone and message just right.

Welcome to the website of Promote Your Brand Name. We are a Web Marketing Company based in Birmingham, England. We offer a number of Web Marketing Services to help our clients obtain high rankings within the organic search ranking listings.

With search giant Google dramatically changing the way it ranks online content, it is now more important than ever that your business understands the new breed of SEO tactics to ensure your web presence comes out on top.

Continuing with tried and tested methods may no longer guarantee the presence you need amid a crowded, competitive online environment.

A comprehensive, multi-channel approach is now essential.

Social media IS relevant to your business

Facebook, Google+ and Twitter, once purely social tools, are now proven branding agents for businesses across all sectors.

SMES and multinationals alike are harnessing the power of the fan page and the tweet to build and boost their brand.

Despite clear benefits, resource and budget pressed businesses which lack the know-how frequently prioritise other activities, leaving social for another day.

Your Facebook, Google+ and Twitter pages are opportunity-rich places to promote your business or personal brand in a lively and interactive way. Don’t let your social presence just be a place to repeat your contact information and corporate material.

These pages are highly visible ‘shopfronts’ where you can bring your products and services to life.

Social media channels also let you interact with customers and other stakeholders, including your own staff, partners and potential customers – all of which can become valuable online brand ambassadors.

You can share details of your company history, latest news and product development: because social media is an excellent story-telling tool, it enables you to engage with your audience on a more informal, but equally powerful level.

You can also interact with staff, catalogue company history and highlight any other facet of your business that might attract other Google+/Facebook/Twitter users and spark interest in what you do.

Share photographs and videos (relating to your business or personal brand) to build and share your brand.

Posting multimedia content such as pictures and videos, as well as written content, offers a richer and diverse user experience and is a powerful way to communicate with customers and potential customers.

Gone are the days when business needs to happen face-to-face, now you can bring your business to the customer, allowing them to see your product or service without having to visit your premises.

How we can help you

We can assist in creating photographic and video content to enrich existing web content and build your social presence. Give us a brief and we will develop a range of content which can be used across your online channels.

One off blog design and build to complete blog management, from initial design and brand development to regular blog posts and content management.

We also have a social media management service monthly package. This is where we write four blog posts and manage the Google+, Facebook and Twitter accounts of our clients for a monthly fee of £350. At the outset we welcome you to take advantage of our FREE ONE WEEK TRIAL to see if you like the way that we work.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us. Our telephone numbers are 0121 680 2600 / 07967 549 070 and our e-mail address is info@promoteyourbrandname.co.uk.

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